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August 2026There are many economic principles which are common sense even to those who have never run their own business. Below are just a few:
1). When demand exceeds supply, prices rise; when supply exceeds demand, prices drop.
Housing is a great example of this. When you have more people seeking places to rent than there are properties to rent, rents will rise. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s property tax freeze received many cheers from financially ignorant supporters who honestly believe the only reason rents are high is that all landlords are heartless, greedy monsters. They never blame the policies of elected officials, like rent freezes (which will eventually decrease rentals on the market, making the problem worse), the housing of illegal immigrants, and city-owned properties not being rented, as the problem; no, only the landlords.
According to a Spectrum News article (ny1.com), published July 30, 2026, a quarterly report just released shows “…nearly 5,000 New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) units are empty…” There are families that have been on the waiting list for NYCHA’s public housing units for years.
In Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Chicago, according to a May 18, 2026 cityandlocal.com article by Aaron Blake, “Approximately 18% of the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) 21,400 public housing units are vacant because they are uninhabitable…” The article also said, “The CHA violated Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act, according to WBEZ Chicago.” Private property owners are held to housing/rental ordinances and state/federal laws by these same politicians and bureaucrats, though, who demonize the landlords every election year for votes.
So, no, fixing up these thousands of city-owned properties, making them rent-ready for American citizens, won’t single-handedly solve NYC and Chicago’s housing crisis, but before they attack landlords for often not being able to afford to pay the maintenance of their rentals, they should lead by example, making their properties rent-ready. Remove the beam from your own eye, Mamdani and Johnson.
Landlords understand if they set rents too high, their properties will sit vacant. Landlords, like employers, don’t want to be constantly advertising for new tenants (or employees).
2). Not all landlords are multi-millionaires with multiple properties.
Let me put this out there right now: there are greedy, uncaring landlords out there who really don’t care about their tenants. I concede that. However, the Mandanis of this world want us to believe all landlords are like that.
Most landlords are middle-income folks who own rental properties to help them pay off their own mortgages and expenses; they are not getting rich off them. When you have a good tenant who pays his rent on time, maintains the property, and informs the landlord of any problems, most landlords keep the rent low to encourage that tenant to stay.
I know this from personal experience. Back in the ‘90s, before becoming a homeowner, I rented the full downstairs and basement of a house in Ripon, just down the street from where I live now. For years, my rent was $310 a month. One day I received a letter from my landlord, Lee, that due to property tax increases, he would have to raise my rent to $325. He sent me a letter apologizing for having to do it and that he appreciated me as a tenant. I called him and let him know I understood, that I wasn’t upset with him. Lee wasn’t jacking up my rent capriciously each year to get more money out of me.
The right to private property ownership is a cornerstone of liberty. If government owns all the property, the citizens of that land cannot be free. Communists hate the concept of owning private property (except when they own it), so I don’t expect them to understand or believe that most landlords look out for their tenants. They want to maintain their properties, not because they are afraid the city will fine them for not complying with city ordinances, but to give their tenants a good reason to stay or to make their rental appealing to new tenants.
We know what Mamdani and his fellow communists want: to make property ownership unaffordable. By freezing rent — but not property taxes or other expenses — your average middle-class landlord, many of whom are retirees on fixed incomes, won’t be able to charge the levels of rent needed to upkeep or upgrade their properties. Then, when they cannot comply with city ordinances, Mamdani, Johnson, and other communists in office can swoop in and seize the properties.
I would argue rent freezes (and property taxes) violate the 5th Amendment, which states that no person “…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
When a government entity, city or otherwise, puts a legal cap on what one can charge for rent, they are first denying the landlord part of his property (extra rent he could be receiving). They are seizing his property for public use (the government now “owns” it) without justly compensating the owner. If ordinance-mandated maintenance is higher than the rent someone can bring in to afford the upkeep, the landlord is being prevented from complying with the law. If property taxes are increased beyond a homeowner’s ability to pay them, their homes are confiscated.
Mamdani said last November, “And when a really bad landlord like this guy refuses to fix it, the city is going to step in, make the repairs, and send them the bill. If that doesn’t work, the city is taking over the building. We’re putting the worst landlords out of business.”
Rest assured, when Mamdani said about “holding bad landlords accountable,” he meant all private landlords, not just the bad ones. He didn’t tell his supporters that part of the reason many landlords, the good ones, don’t make the repairs is that they can’t afford to because of his rent freezes.
Communists need the people to believe that capitalism is always and the only problem for rising costs and shortages; that all of America’s problems could be solved if we would just let government (read: whenever leftist politicians have the majorities in government) take over.
Sadly, many frustrated, angry Americans who believe both major parties have failed them are all too ready to elect smooth-talking open communists who have learned the art of packaging the murderous, evil philosophy of communism as “democratic socialism for the working people” in the name of “giving a voice to the voiceless.”
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